How Would the Foley Case be Handled in Germany?

John Rosenthal at Transatlantic Intelligencer has a very good posting on the topic.

Excerpts:

(...) what would be the properly “European” reaction to indiscretions like those of Mark Foley? As judging by the laws and mores of “old” Europe at any rate, the answer is indifference – if not indeed a studied amazement over the fact that American prudes should interfere with the Congressman and his protégés good fun.  (...)

There is, moreover, a movement in European law to extend such Germanic “permissiveness” across the continent. The proponents of such a development claim to be acting in the name of the “human rights” of teenagers – which is to say, more concretely, their “right” to have sexual relations with adults.

John also mentions the case of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a close confidant of former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer. Cohn-Bendit wrote the following about his experiences while working at a Frankfurt kindergarten some years before:

My constant flirtation with all the children soon took on erotic aspects. I could really feel how the little five-year-old girls had already learned how to come on to me….It happened several times that children would open my fly and begin to caress me…. (see our posting on the story)

John concludes:

Despite the flurry of attention provoked by the re-discovery of these passages in 2001, just one year later Cohn-Bendit was made co-chair of the Green Party group in the European Parliament. He remains not only a member of parliament, but also a highly sought-after commentator on political affairs in both the French and the German media.

Read the complete posting of John - it's definitely worth it!

Comments

[LC Mamapajamas]

I think that it would be in the Democrats' best interest to note the number of responses to this article.

The people in the US don't care about the Foley affair. He wrote some dirty IM messages to an 18-year-old Congressional page, got caught, and resigned Congress.

Case over.

Why do the Democrats insist on gay-bashing to try to keep this non-story in the headlines?

[jane m]

I thought the boy was 16. Pages are usually only 16 when the participate in the program. Big difference in development between 16 and 18 of the typical teenage boy. But you are right. Americans were disgusted by the revelation of such behavior by a member of government but the real force behind the ongoing scandal are the political members who hope to benefit from such exploitation of a young person by an adult. The so-called "cover-up" is a manufactured scandal to add to the litany of Democratic charges against the majority Republicans.

Personally, I am much more interested in such issues as global warming, education, national defense and the survival of social security than the posturing of politicians pointing fingers at each other. HOwever ever since the Watergate era all the American puplic has gotten from politicians is scandal, scandal, scandal some real and some imagined.
Please, enough already. Let's have some solutions to our many problems before it is too late.